Do We Want Gay That Badly?

[Kingster]

My man. I love all of this. Post more!

It's the same argument I had when we were having the Tyreke discussions for the level his deal received. People were making the same claims. the "We can't lose his talent." "We can trade him if it doesn't work out" "He never got a real chance here!" "We have to see what he can do with a coach"

When dealing with 10+mil contracts, you're signing your building block players. That means you have a real plan to build around that guy and he's going to be one of the main focuses when constructing the roster. There should be no guess work when you're committing a 4/50 sort of deal to a player.

I've pointed this out many times, but signing Rudy long-term really limits what we can do over the life of Cuz's contract. This is without offering IT a deal, and letting him walk for nothing. Just for giggles, we'll say we get Gay at 14mil/season long-term. If that'd happen, Rudy would still likely opt in, so Cuz+Rudy adds up to 33mil. After next season, you're looking at 28 mil tied up into both guys for the next 3 seasons after. For the next 3 seasons, including next year, we have around 13mil/season tied into Landry and JT. So after next season, we're up to 41 mil, just tied into Cuz, Gay, Landry,JT. Next, add in Ben McLemore, Ray McCallum, and our rookie this year, and you're looking at around $5-$10mil for those guys over the next 4 seasons with rookie pay scale. So long-term, we will roughly have 46-49mil committed if we can't move anybody.

So with a $63mil salary cap, here's what the DC looks like with the long-term contracts and the holes we'll have to fill with around $17mil to spend:

PG: Ray McCallum
SG: Ben McLemore
SF: Rudy Gay
PF: Jason Thompson || Carl Landry
C: DeMarcus Cousins.

2014 rookie??

So I guess this is a long-winded way of saying that we better have a long-term plan if we keep Rudy here over the Cuz contract. Because there's not a whole lot to work with there and you have 2 contracts that aren't going to bring in much value or something that teams are going to want to take on.

This is a very interesting debate. Initially, I thought signing Gay for a one-year deal for $19 million was preposterous and that a longer term deal was preferable. Now, after reading funky, hrdboild, and yourself, I'm much more inclined to signing him for the one-year $19 million, as counterintuitive as it first appeared. I'm skeptical about signing him to a longer term deal for the $12-$13 mill that is bandied about, for reasons that you outline above.

I agree that Gay is not an elite sf; I've said for quite a while he's second tier. That's what my eye-test tells me. I've never seen him make other players better; he's at best a mediocre passer, he doesn't penetrate and dish; he's primarily a back to the basket iso player who thrives against shorter players and doesn't against longer ones; his defense is average. But based on the salary cap mumbo jumbo, it appears that the Kings would still be hard pressed to maintain the same talent level as last year if he didn't sign the one year deal.

All that said, signing Gay to the one-year $19 mill contract is a Band-Aid and everybody knows it. It's going to be a one year "try-out," which has dubious implications. It's much easier for a player to lose concentration and have a wandering eye toward next year when they only have a one-year contract. If things don't go swimmingly early in the season, I can easily see Gay starting to think about his free agency for the following year rather than buying-in to the Kings' future aspirations.

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

I think that Rudy's ability to be a "closer" down the stretch, is what makes him have more potential value to some...than his overall play and numbers might otherwise indicate.

There's only a few guys around the league who have that ability to "close" and he is one of them. How much is that worth? Is it worth more than two or three other quality players? I don't know, but it probably comes down to hindsight when any potential "closing" actually happens.

The problem with "closer" type players is that everyone else ends up standing around watching. The Spurs team is the opposite of this, with no Iso ball, no designated closer. Personally I much prefer team play and ball movement all the way through the end of games, regardless of the situation

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

If the Kings start Derrick Williams and give him the same minutes as Rudy Gay received I believe their stats and the Kings' win totals will be very similar.

It's a very interesting thought. Would we have had less than 28 wins, if the Gay trade didn't happen, and Williams and Vasquez had continued to start...and IT stayed in his 6th man spot? I doubt it

 

[pshn80]

This is a very interesting debate. Initially, I thought signing Gay for a one-year deal for $19 million was preposterous and that a longer term deal was preferable. Now, after reading funky, hrdboild, and yourself, I'm much more inclined to signing him for the one-year $19 million, as counterintuitive as it first appeared. I'm skeptical about signing him to a longer term deal for the $12-$13 mill that is bandied about, for reasons that you outline above.

I agree that Gay is not an elite sf; I've said for quite a while he's second tier. That's what my eye-test tells me. I've never seen him make other players better; he's at best a mediocre passer, he doesn't penetrate and dish; he's primarily a back to the basket iso player who thrives against shorter players and doesn't against longer ones; his defense is average. But based on the salary cap mumbo jumbo, it appears that the Kings would still be hard pressed to maintain the same talent level as last year if he didn't sign the one year deal.

All that said, signing Gay to the one-year $19 mill contract is a Band-Aid and everybody knows it. It's going to be a one year "try-out," which has dubious implications. It's much easier for a player to lose concentration and have a wandering eye toward next year when they only have a one-year contract. If things don't go swimmingly early in the season, I can easily see Gay starting to think about his free agency for the following year rather than buying-in to the Kings' future aspirations.

And not only aa tryout for Gay but a tryout for the team, Cuz,
IT or his replacement and the rest of our troop, whoever they are. Gay does not play in a vacuum, he plays with four other guys and last year our SG was hardly at 50% efficiency! often leaving us essentially a four man team. It's hard to have a decent passing, ball movement team when you are down a player on the floor. If we can get that fifth player, one way or another, maybe it will give Cuz, IT, Gay and others a chance to shine. Because of that
I want Gay to return any way we can get him.

 

[KingMilz]

I rather have 4 starting level players surround Cousins rather than one elite talent with average impact and 3 other bench players since we can't sign anyone else due to his awful contract which we have to overpay for due to his talent rather than output. That's what made the Spurs so good they have starting level players who are made better by the system/Tim Duncan they have NEVER had a player like Rudy Gay on the roster and there's a good reason for it. Unless they are sparkplugs off the bench your not winning with Isaiah Thomas and Rudy Gay getting the lions share of the looks and mins.

If the team is serious about building around Cousins stop bringing in players who won't fit I honestly rather us try develop Ray/Derrick/Mclemore/8th pick (assuming we can't pull off trades to get 3-4 starting players) than overpay for IT and Gay to watch them and Cousins go on a chucking spree for the ages.

I understand DMC wants to win now but sometimes you simply can't make moves to do that right away, I rather wait one extra year to make a right move than rush into something simply cause we want to contend but clearly the signing of Landry and wanting to re-sign IT and Gay suggest we have zero idea how to do that.

 

[Albatros]

Malone needs to find a way of maximising the impact of Rudy and DMC the two legitimate talents (currently) on this team, something that maximises ball movement and allows the offense to flow through Demarcus. The corner offense wouldn't be a bad place to start.

DMC is already a very good passer of the ball but could be an elite one in the right system, Rudy is extremely effective when he can get into the paint and rise up, getting these two in their sweet spots will also make everyone else 10x better, including people like Derrick and Ben, even people like Outlaw.

what you can't have is people with the mindset of "how can I win this game" instead of "how can we win this game" If IT comes back (hope not) the corner offense would FORCE him to move the ball which is absolutely necessary otherwise you will see him go rogue 4 or 5 times a game and the same goes for Rudy.

Stick someone like Ben in the corner offense and watch him become very effective.

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

I rather have 4 starting level players surround Cousins rather than one elite talent with average impact and 3 other bench players since we can't sign anyone else due to his awful contract which we have to overpay for due to his talent rather than output. That's what made the Spurs so good they have starting level players who are made better by the system/Tim Duncan they have NEVER had a player like Rudy Gay on the roster and there's a good reason for it. Unless they are sparkplugs off the bench your not winning with Isaiah Thomas and Rudy Gay getting the lions share of the looks and mins.

If the team is serious about building around Cousins stop bringing in players who won't fit I honestly rather us try develop Ray/Derrick/Mclemore/8th pick (assuming we can't pull off trades to get 3-4 starting players) than overpay for IT and Gay to watch them and Cousins go on a chucking spree for the ages.

I understand DMC wants to win now but sometimes you simply can't make moves to do that right away, I rather wait one extra year to make a right move than rush into something simply cause we want to contend but clearly the signing of Landry and wanting to re-sign IT and Gay suggest we have zero idea how to do that.

If the potential moves available are not enough to become a true contender, by all means lets remain patient. Barely getting the 8th spot and then getting swept by the Spurs would be a waste of time and money, despite the "experience"

 

[Jerichoholic]

Let's talk about another way of looking at this that I don't think has been discussed much yet in this debate and that is for both sides, those that want to keep Gay and those that don't. What are you expectations of him and what he can do? What is your best case and worst case? This usually is a good way to determine what you would pay a player.

Personally, I don't think the best case is that great. Maybe he can get us a few more wins. I definitely don't see him being the difference in us making the playoffs or not, do you? With better players around him can he even get us to 40 wins? Don't forget though that if he gets paid too much then he won't get better players around him anyway which makes things even harder.

If we lose him how much worse do we become? I still think we win a similar amount of games as last year and if players like McLemore and McCallum develop some we win a few more. In my opinion Rudy Gay is not a difference maker.

 

[Big Cuz 15]

reports seem to indicate we very specifically do NOT want him to opt out, because we're not confident we can win a bidding war for him given our current dilapidated state. Which is probably correct. Maybe the Igoudala debacle actually taught gerbil something about this market. too bad he didn't stop by here first and I could have saved him and us a lot of trouble. In any case, sounds like we want him to opt into his $19mil, gives us a year to try to improve enough that next year when the questions comes up not only do we have a better team to pitch him, but we also have the shiny new building just over the horizon.

Were we in a stronger position or stronger market you could maybe make other plans. In that situation I would love to maybe make a run at Gordon Hayward's restricted status. But as it is, we're lucky to even have Ruby, and certainly would have dim prospects of replacing him with any sort of equal talent.

Remember Boogie has lost here for 4 straight years. Kevin Love is hinting he wants out after 6 straight years of losing in Minny. We need to get this turned around, and that means retaining the talent gerbil did not already lose, and then adding more, and more talent ready to win. Gay doesn't have to be a perfect longterm solution to be the most reasonable one for us in the short term.

i'd take gordon hayward over rudy.

 

[roasthawg]

I definitely want Rudy back... he's either or 2nd or 3rd best player and in the prime of his career. If him and IT both come back and we upgrade the sg position we could realistically be looking at 10-15 more wins based upon IT and Cousins taking another step forward next year and our sg position costing us around 7-10 wins last year.

 

[beb0p]

Let's talk about another way of looking at this that I don't think has been discussed much yet in this debate and that is for both sides, those that want to keep Gay and those that don't. What are you expectations of him and what he can do? What is your best case and worst case? This usually is a good way to determine what you would pay a player.

Personally, I don't think the best case is that great. Maybe he can get us a few more wins. I definitely don't see him being the difference in us making the playoffs or not, do you? With better players around him can he even get us to 40 wins? Don't forget though that if he gets paid too much then he won't get better players around him anyway which makes things even harder.

If we lose him how much worse do we become? I still think we win a similar amount of games as last year and if players like McLemore and McCallum develop some we win a few more. In my opinion Rudy Gay is not a difference maker.

When John Salmons were our starting SF, the Kings were 16-12 when he scored double digits. Think about that. The 34.1% winning team had a 57.1% winning when the SF provided average to good production. Gay is a guy who can score double digits in his sleep, if Gay was on that 2012-13 team and scoring double digits what could the Kings' record would have been?

Now, the problem is for the 2013-14 season, we got Gay but lost Reke, so the end result was a wash (and I don't think Reke and Gay can play together but that's a different dicussion). But it tells me that if the Kings get a quality SG and PF to partner Cousins/Gay they could be on to something big.
.

 

[hrdboild]

I did a lookup on B-R.com of all of the qualified* forwards in the league, and Gay was shown to be ranked 32nd among all forwards in the league in WS/48. However, when you remove everyone who isn't an everyday** small forward (which you have to do manually, since B-R.com doesn't allow you to select for "small forward", only guard, forward or center), then he's actually 14th.

I modified your search to combine the numbers from the 2007/2008 season to the 2013/2014 season and Rudy Gay came up 36th among forwards and 18th among SFs by my count. That accounts for all 7 seasons where he's been right around 20 points per game and places him somewhere comfortably in the "just above average" for a starter category in terms of his impact on the game based on Win Shares. Most of these numbers only make sense anyway when you average them out over a longer period of time. And when you factor in that the players leaving the league or close to it (Peja, Metta, Pierce) are balanced by the players coming in or just starting to take off (Wiggins, Parker, Giannis) I think there's a reasonably good chance he maintains that position.

Now, I tend to side with those who say that WS/48 is a bogus metric, but since you want to use it to start a conversation, here's where I'm taking the conversation: of the fourteen small forwards with a WS/48 of .091 or better, Gay is 5th in scoring, 9th in rebounding, 8th in assists, 9th in steals, 1st in blocks, and 5th in PER. Now, here's where the conversation gets interesting to me: Gay is one of four small forwards who is Top Ten among the other small forwards in all six of those categories. The other three are Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Trevor Ariza.

Now, hopefully, nobody is stupid enough to try and make the argument that Rudy Gay, Trevor Ariza, or even Carmelo Anthony are as good as either LeBron James or Paul George (neither of whom were in the Top 10 among qualified SF in blocks), but when a guy is ostensibly middle-of-the-road in one metric, but rates higher in other, more meaningful (IMO) ones, then I think it's quite fair to question just how useful a metric it is in the first place.

It's ironic to me that I'm somehow in a position of having to defend the value of PER and WS/48 when I used to think the advanced stats were bunk myself. It's only after tracking them for 3 years or so that I've had to admit that they are making me re-think a few things about how I evaluate players. We've all known that counting stats alone don't tell enough of the story and we've known that per36 or per48 stats are problematic because they don't put players on the same equal footing that they intend to. There's typically some resistance to accept new ways of evaluating performance, but these advanced stats were invented as an attempt to fill in holes that we all know exist. They might not do a perfect job of it, but that doesn't make them useless.

The thing I do like about basketball-reference's Win Shares stat is that unlike PER and traditional counting stats, it makes an attempt to qualify what a player produced by accounting for how many possessions it took them to do it not how many minutes they were on the floor. And this is a big point when you're looking at a player like Rudy Gay who has consistently throughout his career used nearly a third of his team's possessions (FGA+TO-Oreb+(FTA*.44).

Let's talk about another way of looking at this that I don't think has been discussed much yet in this debate and that is for both sides, those that want to keep Gay and those that don't. What are you expectations of him and what he can do? What is your best case and worst case? This usually is a good way to determine what you would pay a player.

Personally, I don't think the best case is that great. Maybe he can get us a few more wins. I definitely don't see him being the difference in us making the playoffs or not, do you? With better players around him can he even get us to 40 wins? Don't forget though that if he gets paid too much then he won't get better players around him anyway which makes things even harder.

If we lose him how much worse do we become? I still think we win a similar amount of games as last year and if players like McLemore and McCallum develop some we win a few more. In my opinion Rudy Gay is not a difference maker.

You're right, all of this stats talk is tangential to the main point here which is whether Rudy Gay makes this team better or not. The biggest reason I'm in favor of letting him go, even if it means getting nothing in return, is that I watched a lot of games with Rudy Gay on the team last season and the chemistry just wasn't happening. You can go down the list -- Cousins, McLemore, Williams, McCallum -- all of them played better when Rudy Gay either wasn't on the floor or played a limited role. When Rudy Gay dominated the ball, he scored his points efficiently but the rest of the team struggled. It's difficult for me to see how we're going to improve much in the future with Gay as a focal point for this reason and I don't see much evidence that he knows of a different way to play. He's too talented (and expensive) to be a bit player and not good enough to take over games with his iso-heavy playstyle. I'd prefer that solving this dilemma be some other team's problem.

Best-case I suppose would be surrounding Cousins and Gay with defensive specialists like Sanders, Rondo, and Allen who's biggest weakness is their inability to put points on the board. That lowers the threshold for what the offense needs to achieve to a point where Iso-heavy offense becomes a viable winning strategy. Unfortunately, these guys are going to be hard to get and with Rondo and Allen you can question whether their effectiveness is going to start declining as their paychecks go up. Worst-case would be continuing the search for shooters and playmakers without addressing the other end of the ball. We'll continue to score 100+ points per game, perhaps more efficiently than we did this season, and still lose more games than we win.

 

[Jerichoholic]

Exactly right! If we are going to pay Rudy Gay $19 million for one year or $56 million over four years in a long-term deal then he has to be a difference maker. The players that get the biggest portion of the salary cap have to be your best players, a team can only go as far as those players are able to take them. We will in essence have a big 2 with Cousins and Gay. I just don't think that will be good enough. Now if we were able to get him into a $32 million deal over four years then perhaps it can work because we can get better players to play with him with the rest of the money and with only using that portion of the cap then he doesn't have to carry as much of the load to be worth it. I just don't think there is any way we get him into a deal like that.

I'm also glad you mentioned how other players started playing poorly when he got here. It was a concern of mine when we made the trade and I believe it was discussed on this board at the time. We all wondered how with Gay arriving and taking most of the SF minutes and a large percentage of the shots that others originally had would impact everyone else. Remember that Derrick Williams was playing very well and Ben McLemore was playing his best basketball of the season at the time. We even had our own little version of lob city going on for a few weeks there which was fun to watch. I understand that wins are the most important thing, but I think the players having fun out there is very good for the morale of this team and who's to say that wins wouldn't have started coming eventually anyway.

If he decides to stay then I hope we use that $19 million expiring contact as trade bait. I think that a long-term deal would be a disaster for the long-term potential of this team and we could do much better with that money than just Rudy Gay.

 

[VF21]

In all fairness to Rudy, I don't think we can really evaluate him until he and the rest of the team he'll actually be playing with have a chance to work together off-season, have a training camp, etc. There were so many changes to the roster last year that no one really felt comfortable. I think he's going to surprise some people - I saw flashes of team play this past season that could mean the start of something great withe the right supporting pieces around he and DMC. It's certainly worth exploring.

 

[Jerichoholic]

In all fairness to Rudy, I don't think we can really evaluate him until he and the rest of the team he'll actually be playing with have a chance to work together off-season, have a training camp, etc. There were so many changes to the roster last year that no one really felt comfortable. I think he's going to surprise some people - I saw flashes of team play this past season that could mean the start of something great withe the right supporting pieces around he and DMC. It's certainly worth exploring.

I agree that it's always best to have more time to evaluate a player either individually or with a team. Unfortunately, in this case the timing just doesn't work in our favor. The choice of whether to leave, stay for one year, or sign a long-term deal will have to happen before the offseason and training camp begin. We have to go with the information that we already have. No matter what the Kings choose to do it's a risk, we just have to hope that their choice is the right one.

 

[VF21]

Bottom line is it's not our choice to make - it's Rudy's. I hope he chooses to stay with the Kings, either with the player option or with a new deal. You really just do not want a player with his potential to walk away when we're just starting to do things right again.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I modified your search to combine the numbers from the 2007/2008 season to the 2013/2014 season and Rudy Gay came up 36th among forwards and 18th among SFs by my count. That accounts for all 7 seasons where he's been right around 20 points per game and places him somewhere comfortably in the "just above average" for a starter category in terms of his impact on the game based on Win Shares. Most of these numbers only make sense anyway when you average them out over a longer period of time. And when you factor in that the players leaving the league or close to it (Peja, Metta, Pierce) are balanced by the players coming in or just starting to take off (Wiggins, Parker, Giannis) I think there's a reasonably good chance he maintains that position.

Not really seeing how those previous seasons are relevant to this discussion. You're going to have to present a way stronger argument to convince me how Gay's numbers relative to Prime!Artest, Prime!Granger, Prime!Turkoglu or Prime!Wallace have any bearing on whether or not we need him in 2014-15. Unless you're trying to make the case that we'd be better off with Wallace right now, based on the numbers he put up 2007-11? Granger was a better player than Gay, but that guy ain't coming back through the door. Artest from 2007 would be a way better fit than Gay; do you think that Artest from 2014 is? Also, given my rather vocal anti-tank position, I think that it should go without saying that I'm not as sold on the prospects as you are; I'm absolutely not prepared to say with confidence that any of those kids are going to be as good as Gay in the next three years, let alone next year. And they're not in play for us, anyway, so they're not particularly pertinent to our decision.

And I'm still waiting to find out how we're defining "average" for this conversation.

It's ironic to me that I'm somehow in a position of having to defend the value of PER and WS/48 when I used to think the advanced stats were bunk myself. It's only after tracking them for 3 years or so that I've had to admit that they are making me re-think a few things about how I evaluate players. We've all known that counting stats alone don't tell enough of the story and we've known that per36 or per48 stats are problematic because they don't put players on the same equal footing that they intend to. There's typically some resistance to accept new ways of evaluating performance, but these advanced stats were invented as an attempt to fill in holes that we all know exist. They might not do a perfect job of it, but that doesn't make them useless.

They aren't perfect, and I would submit that they aren't particularly good, overall. To the extent that they are useful, it's only in conjunction with the raw numbers. Anyone who says that a player is good or bad, based solely on the raw numbers is stupid. And anyone who says that a player is good or bad, based solely on the "advanced" metrics is stupid. You have to look at them together. And, when you look at them together, as they pertain to Rudy Gay, they say that he's probably better than you think he is. Not elite, not worth $19M, but probably better than you think he is. He's slightly above average; a gentleman's B-minus, if you will. And to me, the question isn't so much "Who betta than Gay?" as it is, "Who betta than Gay, whom we could reasonably sign?"

 

[hrdboild]

And I'm still waiting to find out how we're defining "average" for this conversation.

They aren't perfect, and I would submit that they aren't particularly good, overall. To the extent that they are useful, it's only in conjunction with the raw numbers. Anyone who says that a player is good or bad, based solely on the raw numbers is stupid. And anyone who says that a player is good or bad, based solely on the "advanced" metrics is stupid. You have to look at them together.

Okay first of all, you're welcome to look up how win shares are calculated if you really want to know more about this. The formula doesn't actually include team wins in any way so perhaps the title is misleading. It's calculated so that 1 win share is expected to produce 1 win. Which means if you add up the win shares of all the players on a team for a particular season you should expect the total to be equal to the amount of games that team won that season. It's predictive much like Pythagorean Wins in baseball sabermetrics. For OKC this year, the team's total win shares equal 59.4 and they won 59 games so the formula worked very well. We totaled 34.9 win shares and won 28 games so we under-performed the expectation. It's difficult for our team this year though because we had so much roster turnover throughout the course of the season (we had 13 players total 500 or less minutes for us) so there's a lot of small sample size issues skewing the results. The season before we had a much more stable roster and totaled 28.1 win shares and won 28 games.

So that's what win shares are all about. It stands to reason though that players getting more minutes are going to accumulate more win shares over the course of a season. So we need a way to even the playing field a bit and that's where WS/48 comes in. For Rudy Gay this season he totaled 4.8 combined offensive and defensive win shares. Divide that by 2531 minutes played and you get .0018965 WS/min and multiply by 48min to get .091 WS/48.

Your question was about what .100 means though. Here's where it comes from --

An NBA game has 240 minutes available (48min x 5 positions on the floor).
Let's assume an average team has a regular rotation of about 8 players getting most of the minutes.
Dividing the available minutes equally (240/8) means each player averages 30 minutes per game.
30 minutes per game x 82 games = 2460 minutes played per season so...
Each of our 8 average players is going to play 2460 minutes.
An average team wins 41 out of 82 games so...
Each of our 8 average players is going to accumulate (41/8) = 5.125 Win Shares per season.

(5.125 Win Shares / 2460 minutes played) x 48 min = .100 WS/48

Now you could change the distribution of minutes around and it's not going to change the result, just make the math more complicated. The .100 baseline is calculated so that a team composed entirely of average players is mathematically right in the middle -- they win 50% of their games. It's a baseline expectation by which to evaluate performance. If a player is on the floor for 2460 minutes in a season and produces less than 5.125 win shares than they are falling short of the 41 game win standard and thus are considered below average.

Whether this is actually below league average is going to vary from season to season, but I think we all agree that the goal here is not to win 41 games per season but to win substantially more than that. And with that goal in mind, WS/48 is a predictive tool for estimating how likely it is that a team is going to win. You could set the standard wherever you want actually. Let's say you want the 4th seed in the Western Conf. The average win total to get the 4th seed for the last 5 seasons (I excluded the lockout shortened year) is 54.4 wins so you should shoot for 55 wins to secure that spot. (55 wins/8) = 6.875 WS /2460 min x 48 = .134 WS/48. You want 8 players whose combined WS/48 average is .134 to secure home court in the first round of the playoffs.

It's not an exact science of course, it's merely a predictive model and a different way to think about building a team. All sorts of other factors like coaching and team chemistry are going to affect your results as well. Maybe as an experiment we could project WS/48 numbers for the opening day roster this season and use that to predict how many games we'll win. The projected WS/48's are going to be tricky though. For the young players it would be inaccurate to just go with career averages.

Not really seeing how those previous seasons are relevant to this discussion. You're going to have to present a way stronger argument to convince me how Gay's numbers relative to Prime!Artest, Prime!Granger, Prime!Turkoglu or Prime!Wallace have any bearing on whether or not we need him in 2014-15. Unless you're trying to make the case that we'd be better off with Wallace right now, based on the numbers he put up 2007-11? Granger was a better player than Gay, but that guy ain't coming back through the door. Artest from 2007 would be a way better fit than Gay; do you think that Artest from 2014 is? Also, given my rather vocal anti-tank position, I think that it should go without saying that I'm not as sold on the prospects as you are; I'm absolutely not prepared to say with confidence that any of those kids are going to be as good as Gay in the next three years, let alone next year. And they're not in play for us, anyway, so they're not particularly pertinent to our decision.

Previous seasons are relevant because we were discussing where Rudy Gay ranks compared to other SFs in the league. For his career he's put up a lot of big numbers without ever coming close to being a top 10 SF in the league. I realize that vintage Wallace, Artest, Peja, Granger et al are no longer better options for us at SF put the bigger point I was making is that one season alone is hardly enough of a sample to declare anybody a top 5 player at his position. We always consider multiple seasons when we're making these kinds of assertions don't we? And if you're going to pay Rudy Gay a near-max salary for 4 more years based on the idea that he's a top 5 player at his position, I think it is relevant who is coming into the league who might challenge that assertion over the length of the contract. Even before we talk about 2 of the top 3 prospects in this year's draft playing SF there's also a crop of young forwards who are just starting their NBA careers and could get substantially better over the next 4 years. Evan Turner, Kawhi Leonard, Harrison Barnes, Tobias Harris, Moe Harkless, Derrick Williams, Otto Porter, Anthony Bennett, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Any one of them could move into the upper tier over the next 4 years. By some numbers, Leonard is already there. Harris and Kidd-Gilchrist are trending upward.

And, when you look at them together, as they pertain to Rudy Gay, they say that he's probably better than you think he is. Not elite, not worth $19M, but probably better than you think he is. He's slightly above average; a gentleman's B-minus, if you will. And to me, the question isn't so much "Who betta than Gay?" as it is, "Who betta than Gay, whom we could reasonably sign?

So after all of that, we're really just arguing the same point aren't we? Rudy Gay is slightly above average. That's what I've been saying. WS/48 thinks he's slightly below the 41 game standard but PER says he's just a little better than the average starter. And considering the average starter probably doesn't quite meet the 41 game standard either, these stats are actually in pretty close agreement with one another. When you understand that a 41 win team is considered baseline average, it makes sense why our ideas of what constitutes an "average player" might be radically skewed at this point. We haven't won 41 games here in almost a decade. And that's why I don't think it's fair to compare Rudy Gay to the history of the SF position on the Sacramento Kings. Not unless your goal is sustained mediocrity.

I don't have an easy answer to your question but it's clear to me where our two points of view come from. You think a slightly above average Rudy Gay even overpriced is better than nothing. I'd rather a black hole at the position than a 4 year contract which commits us to losing money (relative to production) for the next 4 years. Even if we're in a small market I can't in good conscience sign off on a deal which is mathematically not in our favor. The numbers say Rudy Gay's production is replaceable for half the cost. Of course, numbers aren't everything. No amount of money is going to replace that smile.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Okay first of all, you're welcome to look up how win shares are calculated if you really want to know more about this. The formula doesn't actually include team wins in any way so perhaps the title is misleading. It's calculated so that 1 win share is expected to produce 1 win. Which means if you add up the win shares of all the players on a team for a particular season you should expect the total to be equal to the amount of games that team won that season. It's predictive much like Pythagorean Wins in baseball sabermetrics. For OKC this year, the team's total win shares equal 59.4 and they won 59 games so the formula worked very well. We totaled 34.9 win shares and won 28 games so we under-performed the expectation. It's difficult for our team this year though because we had so much roster turnover throughout the course of the season (we had 13 players total 500 or less minutes for us) so there's a lot of small sample size issues skewing the results. The season before we had a much more stable roster and totaled 28.1 win shares and won 28 games.

So that's what win shares are all about. It stands to reason though that players getting more minutes are going to accumulate more win shares over the course of a season. So we need a way to even the playing field a bit and that's where WS/48 comes in. For Rudy Gay this season he totaled 4.8 combined offensive and defensive win shares. Divide that by 2531 minutes played and you get .0018965 WS/min and multiply by 48min to get .091 WS/48.

Your question was about what .100 means though. Here's where it comes from --

An NBA game has 240 minutes available (48min x 5 positions on the floor).
Let's assume an average team has a regular rotation of about 8 players getting most of the minutes.
Dividing the available minutes equally (240/8) means each player averages 30 minutes per game.
30 minutes per game x 82 games = 2460 minutes played per season so...
Each of our 8 average players is going to play 2460 minutes.
An average team wins 41 out of 82 games so...
Each of our 8 average players is going to accumulate (41/8) = 5.125 Win Shares per season.

(5.125 Win Shares / 2460 minutes played) x 48 min = .100 WS/48

Now you could change the distribution of minutes around and it's not going to change the result, just make the math more complicated. The .100 baseline is calculated so that a team composed entirely of average players is mathematically right in the middle -- they win 50% of their games. It's a baseline expectation by which to evaluate performance. If a player is on the floor for 2460 minutes in a season and produces less than 5.125 win shares than they are falling short of the 41 game win standard and thus are considered below average.

Whether this is actually below league average is going to vary from season to season, but I think we all agree that the goal here is not to win 41 games per season but to win substantially more than that. And with that goal in mind, WS/48 is a predictive tool for estimating how likely it is that a team is going to win. You could set the standard wherever you want actually. Let's say you want the 4th seed in the Western Conf. The average win total to get the 4th seed for the last 5 seasons (I excluded the lockout shortened year) is 54.4 wins so you should shoot for 55 wins to secure that spot. (55 wins/8) = 6.875 WS /2460 min x 48 = .134 WS/48. You want 8 players whose combined WS/48 average is .134 to secure home court in the first round of the playoffs.

It's not an exact science of course, it's merely a predictive model and a different way to think about building a team. All sorts of other factors like coaching and team chemistry are going to affect your results as well. Maybe as an experiment we could project WS/48 numbers for the opening day roster this season and use that to predict how many games we'll win. The projected WS/48's are going to be tricky though. For the young players it would be inaccurate to just go with career averages.

And I'll ask again: what definition of "average" allows for sixty-three percent of the players in the league to be classified as "below average"?

Previous seasons are relevant because we were discussing where Rudy Gay ranks compared to other SFs in the league. For his career he's put up a lot of big numbers without ever coming close to being a top 10 SF in the league. I realize that vintage Wallace, Artest, Peja, Granger et al are no longer better options for us at SF put the bigger point I was making is that one season alone is hardly enough of a sample to declare anybody a top 5 player at his position. We always consider multiple seasons when we're making these kinds of assertions don't we? And if you're going to pay Rudy Gay a near-max salary for 4 more years based on the idea that he's a top 5 player at his position, I think it is relevant who is coming into the league who might challenge that assertion over the length of the contract. Even before we talk about 2 of the top 3 prospects in this year's draft playing SF there's also a crop of young forwards who are just starting their NBA careers and could get substantially better over the next 4 years. Evan Turner, Kawhi Leonard, Harrison Barnes, Tobias Harris, Moe Harkless, Derrick Williams, Otto Porter, Anthony Bennett, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Any one of them could move into the upper tier over the next 4 years. By some numbers, Leonard is already there. Harris and Kidd-Gilchrist are trending upward.

Except it's not one season: as Brick already pointed out, Gay has been pretty consistent throughout his career. And no, it's not Top 5, but I'll be damned if it's not Top 10. Definitely not below Top Twelve, whether WS says otherwise, or not. Those guys might get better. And they might not. Leonard has proven that he deserves to be in the discussion of elite SF. I wouldn't bet anything I'd lament being rid of that any of the rest of those guys are going to be anywhere close to Gay's level, before Gay reaches his mid thirties.

So after all of that, we're really just arguing the same point aren't we? Rudy Gay is slightly above average.

No... "we're" not arguing about Gay being slightly above average: "we're" arguing because you said that Gay is a league average player or even a little bit below.

 

[hrdboild]

And I'll ask again: what definition of "average" allows for sixty-three percent of the players in the league to be classified as "below average"?

Except it's not one season: as Brick already pointed out, Gay has been pretty consistent throughout his career. And no, it's not Top 5, but I'll be damned if it's not Top 10. Definitely not below Top Twelve, whether WS says otherwise, or not. Those guys might get better. And they might not. Leonard has proven that he deserves to be in the discussion of elite SF. I wouldn't bet anything I'd lament being rid of that any of the rest of those guys are going to be anywhere close to Gay's level, before Gay reaches his mid thirties.

No... "we're" not arguing about Gay being slightly above average: "we're" arguing because you said that Gay is a league average player or even a little bit below.

If that's all you have to say, we're pretty much done here.

I agreed that we're basing our opinions on different understandings of what average means. Average is an arbitrary term and I explained what average means in this context. Some seasons Gay has been just above average (last season after the trade to Sacramento was one of them), some seasons he's been just below average, and over the course of his career overall he's been slightly below average. I think he's a better player right now than his career averages, but not by a lot.

[The numbers] say Rudy Gay in most years is a league average player or even a little bit below that being paid (and treated) like an All-Star.

That's exactly what I said in the post you linked to and I stand by that. It was a reference to WS/48 and I just explained what I meant by average when I said that.

You're right about Gay being consistent throughout his career. I also think you and Bricklayer are both overvaluing the significance of 'points scored' as an indicator of a player's contribution to a team. I don't think any of those young guys I mentioned are going to become a 20 point scorer in the next 4 years. I also don't think they would need to in order to surpass Rudy Gay's value to a basketball team throughout his career.

And I still think you're making my point for me. "Definitely not below top 12" at SF in the league for a player in his prime is not worth $12 million a year to me. Not even close. It also barely qualifies as a second option. Are Chris Paul and Blake Griffin "definitely not below top 12" at their positions? Westbrook and Durant? Harden and Howard? That's our competition. What's the end goal here, just making the playoffs or winning championships?

 

[Capt. Factorial]

And I'll ask again: what definition of "average" allows for sixty-three percent of the players in the league to be classified as "below average"?

The problem is that there are multiple possible ways to define the "average" of a distribution, and when the distribution is not Gaussian, they don't coincide. For example, the distribution of WS/48 numbers probably looks like the distribution below:

What you're seeing with WS/48 is that the median value (one definition of "average", for which 50% of players are higher and 50% are lower) is less than .100, but the mean value is higher than the median value, because players like LeBron skew the distribution with abnormally high values (or, technically, abnormally high values if you expected a Gaussian distribution).

In the case of WS/48 the mean is designed to be very close to 0.100, but it is not guaranteed to be exactly 0.100 for two reasons. One, WS/48 does not technically take team performance into account. Two, the average game (which in principle produces exactly one WS) is not 48 minutes long due to overtimes. This year the average game was 48.39 minutes long, so in principle the mean WS/48 should be about 0.0992.

 

[Spike]

I was told there would be no math.

 

[Jerichoholic]

It's not just how he compares to others at his position nor is it about the definition of what average is using WS/48, that is just one stat of many to use to define a player. I think this is more about cost/benefit analysis. We have seen Rudy Gay play for awhile now, we have seen him play for three teams who are all very different from each other so it is a good sample set. From watching him play and what he has contributed I think we are starting to come to an agreement in this thread that his is a slightly above average player. That's fine, slightly above average players can contribute to a team, but at what cost?

DeMarcus Cousins is our #1 and he gets paid roughly $16 million per year. I will take that, he is clearly a #1 guy and has the potential to be a great player. Rudy Gay would get $19 million if he stays and probably something like $14 million per year if he signs an extension. That is the precedent, Gay got paid big money so the belief will be that he always should, things tend to work out that way. However you don't pay slightly above average players that kind of money. Your highest paid players dictate how far your franchise can go and if you keep Cousins and Gay that is our Big 2. Does anyone really believe that even with better role players around them that the combination of Cousins and Gay can get us deep in the playoffs? I think with better players Gay actually gets exposed to just how good he is, in Memphis when they got good he arguably became the 4th option on that team behind Randolph, Gasol, and Conley. Now that is a formidable team, I would take that. I would take that if Gay got paid $8 million or so, but anything higher than that he becomes an anchor on the salary cap which is what happened.

I think Rudy Gay can be a contributor in some ways, but at the cost that he expects and many others expect you just don't get enough in return. You can't mortgage the entire franchise on the argument that he may only be slightly above average, but he is better than anyone else who would sign here. You can use that on an $8 million a year player, but when you are talking all-star money, it's just too much.

 

[pshn80]

We better unless you really want to resign Salmons or Honeycutt.

 

[Bricklayer]

From watching him play and what he has contributed I think we are starting to come to an agreement in this thread that his is a slightly above average player. That's fine, slightly above average players can contribute to a team, but at what cost?

I don't think anybody who knows basketball has come to that conclusion. And BTW, that includes a long series of NBA coaches and front offices who have made him a major starter, attempted to make him a #1 star/franchise player at point, dumped a max contract on him etc.

Rudy Gay as "average player" is 100% completely an invention of statheads. Its got nothing to do with basketball. He's a marvelous talent. There aren't 10 more talented players at his position in the league.

Now we can have a discussion about his impact or proper use, but letting arcane statistical formulas overwhelm your basketball is a credit to neither.

 

[Jerichoholic]

I don't think anybody who knows basketball has come to that conclusion. And BTW, that includes a long series of NBA coaches and front offices who have made him a major starter, attempted to make him a #1 star/franchise player at point, dumped a max contract on him etc.

Rudy Gay as "average player" is 100% completely an invention of statheads. Its got nothing to do with basketball. He's a marvelous talent. There aren't 10 more talented players at his position in the league.

Now we can have a discussion about his impact or proper use, but letting arcane statistical formulas overwhelm your basketball is a credit to neither.

I will start by saying that I don't mean to put words in other people's mouths. All I was saying is that there are a good number of posts here stating that Rudy Gay is a slightly above average player, I shouldn't have said starting to come to an agreement, it has not become the general consensus, yet.

Now I think you used a very important word in your argument and that word is "attempted". I believe a lot of players come into the league and become pigeon-holed as a certain type of player or certain level of player regardless if it's the truth or not. This doesn't only happen with the fans, but within the league as well. Rudy Gay has the look of a star, he's got the body, the athleticism, makes plays seem easy, etc. He was brought in the league to be a star, he was the #1 guy at some point in both Memphis and Toronto and was given a max contract. On the surface looks like a star. Let's dig a little deeper though. When he was the #1 in both cities the teams played horribly. When Memphis started to get better as they acquired better players you have to ask, are they getting better because of the new players or the growth of Rudy Gay, or both? We got our answer when Gay was traded to Toronto and the team continued to improve, this shows that his positive impact was minimal. In Toronto things didn't work at all as they are an offense that prefers to move the ball and Gay doesn't fit well in that type of offense. When he leaves they improve significantly. He is supposed to be a star, two teams and maybe a third here is attempting to make him a franchise type of player. The problem is that he just isn't that and he never will be so he shouldn't be paid as if he is.

I also want to say that I'm not using stats in this argument, this is purely from watching a lot of basketball. I agree that he's a marvelous talent. I agree that there may not be 10 more talented players at his position in the league (which puts him in the top 33% in the league at a single position, not actually saying much). Regardless of that though, if he is being paid $19 million for one year or a long-term deal getting near $14 million a year he better not be in the top 10 in his position, he better be in the top 3 or at least top 5.

In terms of impact I think Rudy Gay gets the Kings a few more wins than they would normally have, but as the team hopefully improves it will be like in Memphis again. We will get better players that will have more of an impact and Gay will start to drop down the ladder. Before you know it you have a $14 million a year player who is the 4th option on the team, then you really start to regret the signing.

 

[Chupacabra]

Uhhh....what is this garbage about a slightly above average player? Do you have some separate agenda? What are you basing this judgement off of? Is this the thread where we brought up that bs W/48 stat?

 

[Prince_XY]

I hope Gay opts out. I think 19 million is too much to spend on him just so we could know if he is indeed a good fit in this team going forward.

The so-called "great" triumvirate of IT, Gay, and Cousins lead us nowhere in this league. The 28 wins we got should be big enough evidence that it failed. Gay is nowhere the impact player we hope he would be, otherwise we could have won more already. That should have been an eye opener for all of us already. And certainly, IT is just too selfish offensively, too small for a point guard, and is too big a defensive liability.

Why not let go of IT and Gay and try some other players with the money we will overspend on these two guys while there are very good and very young players out there that are available.

Give the big money to sure winners like Bledsoe and Lowry, or even to much less expensive players like Afflalo and Parsons and then fill in the blanks.

 

[Bricklayer]

I hope Gay opts out. I think 19 million is too much to spend on him just so we could know if he is indeed a good fit in this team going forward.

The so-called "great" triumvirate of IT, Gay, and Cousins lead us nowhere in this league. The 28 wins we got should be big enough evidence that it failed. Gay is nowhere the impact player we hope he would be, otherwise we could have won more already. That should have been an eye opener for all of us already. And certainly, IT is just too selfish offensively, too small for a point guard, and is too big a defensive liability.

Why not let go of IT and Gay and try some other players with the money we will overspend on these two guys while there are very good and very young players out there that are available.

Give the big money to sure winners like Bledsoe and Lowry, or even to much less expensive players like Afflalo and Parsons and then fill in the blanks.

Actually, in games Rudy Gay, IT and Cuz were all on the floor together last year I'm pretty sure we were 18-20 on a quick basketball-reference search.

We didn't prove much last year aside form being in total chaos, oft injured/tanking, and with very few quality NBA players. Gay was one of them, but I think he only suited up 54 times, and 8 of those were without Isaiah (we went 2-6), and 8 more without Cuz (we went 0-8).

If those numbers are right then overall we'd be:

IT/Gay/Cuz = 18-20 (39 win pace)
IT/Cuz = 8-14

IT/Gay = 0-8
Cuz/Gay = 2-6
Cuz alone = 0-2
IT alone = 0-4
Gay alone = N/A
------------------
All partials except IT/Cuz = 2-20


Except that I'm pretty sure that Cuz only missed 11 games, so I am off by one somewhere.

Anyway, you get the idea. All 3 together = we were competitive.

 

[Tetsujin]

Actually, in games Rudy Gay, IT and Cuz were all on the floor together last year I'm pretty sure we were 18-20 on a quick basketball-reference search.

We didn't prove much last year aside form being in total chaos, oft injured/tanking, and with very few quality NBA players. Gay was one of them, but I think he only suited up 54 times, and 8 of those were without Isaiah (we went 2-6), and 8 more without Cuz (we went 0-8).

If those numbers are right then overall we'd be:

IT/Gay/Cuz = 18-20 (39 win pace)
IT/Cuz = 8-14

IT/Gay = 0-8
Cuz/Gay = 2-6
Cuz alone = 0-2
IT alone = 0-4
Gay alone = N/A
------------------
All partials except IT/Cuz = 2-20


Except that I'm pretty sure that Cuz only missed 11 games, so I am off by one somewhere.

Anyway, you get the idea. All 3 together = we were competitive.

Not sure if you've already factored it in there but the Houston nightmare where Cuz and Gay both got hurt in the first half probably shouldn't be included in that number.

 

[The_Jamal]

Actually, in games Rudy Gay, IT and Cuz were all on the floor together last year I'm pretty sure we were 18-20 on a quick basketball-reference search.

We didn't prove much last year aside form being in total chaos, oft injured/tanking, and with very few quality NBA players. Gay was one of them, but I think he only suited up 54 times, and 8 of those were without Isaiah (we went 2-6), and 8 more without Cuz (we went 0-8).

If those numbers are right then overall we'd be:

IT/Gay/Cuz = 18-20 (39 win pace)
IT/Cuz = 8-14

IT/Gay = 0-8
Cuz/Gay = 2-6
Cuz alone = 0-2
IT alone = 0-4
Gay alone = N/A
------------------
All partials except IT/Cuz = 2-20


Except that I'm pretty sure that Cuz only missed 11 games, so I am off by one somewhere.

Anyway, you get the idea. All 3 together = we were competitive.

You're messing up somewhere. We were 6-12 before we got Gay, (I guess you'd call that IT/Cuz but IT wasn't starting). There were 2 games before Gay came over where IT/Cuz started together. We beat up the Mavs and got beat up by Utah. Might be other times as well, but certainly not 2-20

 

[The_Jamal]

Not sure if you've already factored it in there but the Houston nightmare where Cuz and Gay both got hurt in the first half probably shouldn't be included in that number.

Ick, that game. Just as we were FINALLY about to put something together resembling a winning roster, it's all thrown out the window in one damn quarter.

We had actually been playing great ball for a month up to that game. Dating back to the Miami OT win at home on 12/27 to the Injury Rockets game on 1/22, we had gone 7-6 with wins over Portland, Houston and Miami and a 20 point win over the Magic, the 44 pt beatdown over Cleveland and 17 point win over the Pelicans. And of the 6 losses, 4 of them were against OKC, SAS, Indy and Memphis (who we should have beat sans the IT meltdown).

Unfortunately, the rest of the year was just Cuz, IT, and Gay missing games at different times to where we could never find a groove again the rest of the year.